[merged mm-stable] mm-madvise-use-folio_trylock-in-the-cold-pageout-pmd-split.patch removed from -mm tree

[merged mm-stable] mm-madvise-use-folio_trylock-in-the-cold-pageout-pmd-split.patch removed from -mm tree

[Andrew Morton]

The quilt patch titled
     Subject: mm/madvise: use folio_trylock() in the cold/pageout PMD split
has been removed from the -mm tree.  Its filename was
     mm-madvise-use-folio_trylock-in-the-cold-pageout-pmd-split.patch

This patch was dropped because it was merged into the mm-stable branch
of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/akpm/mm

------------------------------------------------------
From: Gregory Price <gourry@gourry.net>
Subject: mm/madvise: use folio_trylock() in the cold/pageout PMD split
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2026 07:05:40 -0400

MADV_COLD or MADV_PAGEOUT over part of a PMD splits the THP in
madvise_cold_or_pageout_pte_range().  Two threads doing that to the same
THP create spurious failures.

  CPU0                          CPU1
  ----                          ----
  folio_get()
  spin_unlock(ptl)
  folio_lock()
                                folio_get()
                                spin_unlock(ptl)
                                folio_lock()  <- blocks, keeps its ref
  split_folio()
    folio_expected_ref_count(folio) != folio_ref_count(folio) - 1
    -EAGAIN

CPU1 cannot drop its reference until it gets the lock CPU0 holds, so
CPU0's split always fails.  folio_trylock() makes CPU1 leave without ever
taking a reference.  The PTE branch of this same function already does
this, as do madvise_free_pte_range() and madvise_free_huge_pmd().

Reproducer: 400 rounds of eight threads calling MADV_COLD on half of each
of eight THPs, re-formed with MADV_COLLAPSE between rounds.  From
/proc/vmstat:

                     thp_split_page   thp_split_page_failed
    before                     3186                     860
    after                      3200                       0

The short before count is rounds where every thread failed and the advice
was dropped for that THP entirely.

On failure the walker returns 0 and nothing retries.  The PMD path becomes
best effort when the folio lock is held elsewhere - same as the PTE path.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/20260912110540.3203010-1-gourry@gourry.net
Signed-off-by: Gregory Price (Meta) <gourry@gourry.net>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Reported-by: sashiko-bot <sashiko-bot@kernel.org>
Closes: https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260817220810.1175596-1-gourry%40gourry.net
Acked-by: Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) <ljs@kernel.org>
Acked-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <david@kernel.org>
Assisted-by: LLM
Cc: Jann Horn <jannh@google.com>
Cc: Liam R. Howlett <liam@infradead.org>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@kernel.org>
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
---

 mm/madvise.c |    3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

--- a/mm/madvise.c~mm-madvise-use-folio_trylock-in-the-cold-pageout-pmd-split
+++ a/mm/madvise.c
@@ -417,9 +417,10 @@ static int madvise_cold_or_pageout_pte_r
 		if (next - addr != HPAGE_PMD_SIZE) {
 			int err;
 
+			if (!folio_trylock(folio))
+				goto huge_unlock;
 			folio_get(folio);
 			spin_unlock(ptl);
-			folio_lock(folio);
 			err = split_folio(folio);
 			folio_unlock(folio);
 			folio_put(folio);
_

Patches currently in -mm which might be from gourry@gourry.net are

mm-damon-use-damon_get_monitor_folio-for-hugetlb-entries.patch